I just signed up for Solar panels on my roof. The way it works is:
1. I get an MCS certificate from the company who are installing the panels.
2. I tell my electricity provider I now have solar panels on my roof.
3. My electricity company then give me £1100 a year towards my electricity bill (this value is calculated at Government rates. The Government have a scheme with electricity providers saying that if a house has solar panels on it the electricty provider must give the customer approx £1100 a year)
4. Now my electricity bill is £300 a quarter on average, thats £1200 a year. So after the money back I pay £100 a year for my electricity
. Also theres an 'export income' where we send 50% of the energy we make from Solar back to the Electricity Provider which they pay us for. This is a tiny amount though, something like £70 a year. But the main mney saver is the £1100 we get from the electricity provider, and this will go up every year on predicition.
5. We'll be encouraged to use electricity more during the day as it will be using the Solar and so indoing so we will be making even more savings as we'll be using less of the electricity providers leccy.
6. This scheme is gauranteed for 25 years. The cost of the installation is £12000 and so after 8 years it will have paid for itself, then after that we'll be making money. The Solar panels and all hardware are ours to keep for life and so it's added a premium to our house value. Also theres no extra cost to add them to the house insurance.
I sat with the sales guy for a good 2 hours and grilled him about everything. Yes I'm 12k down now, but after 8 years I'll still be getting about £1100+ from my electricity provider an so I'll start making a profit. He estimates in my area the panels will make enough electricity so that during daylight hours we wont touch the electricity avaialble to us from the grid. Its only at night we use the grid's electricity. FiT of 43.3p end on Sunday so were literally the last peple on the country gettin this offer, after that it goes down to 23p.